The experiments Eric suggests are good ones, and they’ve been run repeatedly. I’ll dig up some citations and add them soon. They tend to show that climate models have consistently gotten it nearly right, and if anything have tended to underestimate the magnitude of global warming. Check back later for cites.

realclimate.org (pro), run by Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeller at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)
climateaudit.org (con), run by Steven McIntyre, a former mining company executive, who has been critical of NASA GISS research

Once again you have taken a level-headed and prudent approach to this divisive issue. I constantly remind myself that I am not a climate scientist who possesses enough expertise to judge the validity of science’s claims. The scientists I do know, however, tell me that it takes decades of time and mountains of data to develop this level of confidence in a scientific theory. As a Christian who isn’t an expert, that’s all I have to go on. It seems to me that the prevailing opinion on climate change is very likely true. If so, the fallout will ravage earth’s poorest residents.

My occupational integrity and Christian virtues lead me to support prudent action despite these emails.

Jonathan

Here’s a quote from a “so-called skeptic”, a crackpot (word-chosen carefully) named Lord Monckton. “The Hadley-CRU temperature data set is simply a joke. It has no scientific data whatsoever,” he asserts. “It’s simply made up; it’s just nonsense.”

What’s nonsense is that kind of bald assertion. Folks at the CRU may have mismanaged their data–which still hasn’t been shown–but they didn’t just make it up. Folks like Monckton don’t deserve to be called skeptics–they have their minds firmly shut to the influence of evidence. And of course, you could make the same critique of some environmental activists.

But using the word “skeptic” simply for folks who disbelieve mainstream science does an injustice to any who claim to be a scientist, where skepticism is fundamental virtue. We wouldn’t know what we know about the climate system if scientists weren’t skeptical.

Forensic sciences (like Astronomy, economics and climatology) can’t do this. The experiment I propose will take 20 years, not months. The experiment is not repeatable, as nature only takes one course over the next twenty years. And, for that matter, I’m not sure anyone is even contemplating doing this. Are you aware of any attempt to validate frozen 1989 models against 2009 data?

By the way, I don’t think climatology is in a unique situation. I’m currently a professor in a department that is heavy on economics, where I have a reputation for being skeptical of all econometric fitting that doesn’t have a prediction for data that couldn’t have been known at the time of the original parameter estimation. J. Scott Armstrong, marketing professor at Wharton, wrote the book (literally) on forecasting. He claims econometric fits are nearly useless at predicting data that couldn’t have been known at the time of the fit. He has a proposed bet with Al Gore that global temperatures will be closer to level than the IPCC prediction in the near future. I don’t believe Gore has accepted.

Anyway, until climate models have passed a hypothesis/dangerous distinguishing prediction/experimental result test, I’ll remain skeptical.

Also, it would be polite not to use the word “so-called” in front of the
word “skeptic”. The skeptics are actually skeptical, so “skeptic” is the
correct word to use to describe them. Many (though, as at CRU, not all) are
intelligent, informed, qualified and honest.”

You mentioned folks wanting to beat up Pat Michaels, but in this case he’s on the global warming side: as one of the chief skeptics of mainstream climate science, has repeatedly warned other skeptics away from the “global warming has halted argument”, admitting that it will make them look ridiculous in the long run, and it’s bad for skepticism. He warns against trying to get much mileage out of your point #3. It’s an argument that could have been made many times in the past 150 years (that global warming appeared to have stopped), but each time that argument would have proved wrong. Only time will tell if the current slowdown is permanent, but history is against it.

Remember that the CRU dataset is only one of four major temperature datasets on global average surface temperatures. Two are based in US institutions, one in Japan, and one in the UK. They show remarkable agreement on trends, and in fact the CRU dataset (from the UK) was the one that showed the least change, so if you rejected it, the global warming evidence would actually appear more dramatic. But the attention to this dataset should increase scrutiny on the others, which is right and useful.

Geochemist Peter Kelemen agrees with you that some scientists, like the ones in the emails, have moved on from advising to persuading, not a role for scientists as scientists. As he puts it, all real scientists are climate skeptics. It points to a misuse of the word “skeptic”. Most of the people who reject mainstream climate science are not skeptical, they just don’t believe it (the same can be said about many environmentalists, but they don’t claim to be skeptics). No amount of evidence would convince them to be skeptical of their own positions! Again, that’s true of many on both sides of the anthropogenic global warming debate.

Thanks for a great article, Rusty